Cleavage
by allibabab
Summary: He hates his pain and he hates her guilt, and he’s not sure what’s breaking but he knows something in his chest is releasing, a smooth fissure between what it is and what it could be. [HouseCuddy]


Disclaimer: I don't own anything affiliated with _House_. Shocker, right?

* * *

Cleavage, he knows, doesn't necessarily always refer to breasts.

It can mean a divide in something that was once whole; a break, a splitting of parts, when one thing goes one way and the other continues in an opposite direction. For minerals, this divide makes everything smooth and flat enough to run a hand on, no chance of nicking yourself on sharp edges or points.

This isn't helping. He doesn't feel smooth and he doesn't feel flat: he feels jagged and raised, like spikes of crystal, like the hairs on a wide-eyed cat. A kind of subdued rage boils in his stomach, churning with acid and shame, the kind like hot steam that fogs your vision and keeps you from seeing clearly. It is a slow anger, quiet and relentless, and he feels it rising in his throat when he sees her, when she sees him.

This anger is not for her. It is for him, and him alone, but the way that he wants her and the way that he knows he has her are mixing, culminating in the sight of her soft flesh, the seductive cut of her blouse. He knows if he touched the necklace that hangs there it would be warm with her heat and he wants, he wants her.

It makes him feel sicker, looking at her, but he can't seem to stop. He watches her move around her office, shuffling papers, signing things, and he feels a heat within him that he can't identify, can hardly acknowledge; and now the stiffness he feels has nothing to do with his upper lip and everything to do with the way she's leaning over her desk, her body all curves and shadows. Before he knows what he's doing he's leaning on his cane and pulling down on the door handle, drawing it open and stepping inside.

"You have to stop this," he says, his voice low.

She looks up, immediately taking him in, his bruised-looking eyes, the white knuckles he has clenched around his cane, the way his other hand hangs in shadow at his side. She doesn't answer.

"_You_ have to stop this," he repeats, "because I can't."

She sets down some papers, smoothes a hand over her cheek, sighs. "Why?"

His mouth twitches. "You want more than I can give you. It's not fair."

"Feeling guilty?" she asks. "I thought that was my thing."

"Don't," he says sharply. "It's not a joke."

She stands up and he can see fingers of redness coming up from her chest, rising to her cheeks. He hopes to God that it's anger she feels and not abandonment. His stomach churns. "That's rich," she hisses, "coming from you. You can't just back away from this."

"I'm not." He leans on his cane, leans off. He looks back at her and wonders if her eyes look wet or if it's just a trick of the light.

"No," she says. "You're asking me to."

He doesn't answer, and it's more than enough of a reply.

She pauses, waits. There are definite tears in her eyes now, and a few have slipped down and made black tearstains down her cheeks. Her mascara is running and she doesn't care, she doesn't _care_, and he knows he can't watch her much longer before he relents and gives in and keeps doing this to her, keeps hurting her with the things he says and the things he doesn't.

"Well, that's too bad," she says.

Again, he says nothing. The silence rings in his ears, like the sound of a tuning fork: he feels his edges begin to waver and crack. He won't really break, will he? She stares and he has to look away. The blue is too intense, too genuine.

"You don't know what I want," she rasps, her voice lower, and he knows it's from the thickness in her throat. He feels it too.

Finally, he replies. "Yes, I do."

"No." Her voice is quiet. "If you did, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be doing this." She wipes a tearstain away, smudging black over her hand and her cheek, and he can't help but think that it's stage makeup, that this is some play they're all acting in, and if he gives in now the director will flick a switch and turn on the lights, tell him to do that one over because it just won't work this way. This has to happen. It can't go on like this.

He waits. "It has to end, Lisa."

"Like hell it does," she replies. "If you're doing this for me, you can just stop. This is not what I want and you know it. You're doing this for yourself, House. You're miserable, and that's all you've known, and you're scared to have – to want – anything more than that."

"How astute of you," he says, and his voice is a little cold now. The heat from before has left him and now he's feeling tainted, hollow, carved out of something not quite flesh.

She quirks an eyebrow, her eyes heavy. "It's just too damn bad," she says, looking away, looking calmer. She's got the upper hand now and she thinks she's won it fair and square: she doesn't realize he handed it to her when he pulled her door open and asked her to hurt him. "I won't do it. I'm not going to end this, and neither are you."

"I could," he says, almost a threat but not quite sharp enough. It lacks the acidity he's so used to, but he can still feel a burn on the back of his tongue at her stubbornness, at the way he's going to break.

"You won't," she says with finality. She looks away. He feels a fracture in the air, a crack in the pressure. They both know it's over. She's won this time and he's not sure whether he really ever thought it would work. He's not sure he really wanted it to. He did, but he didn't. It makes a difference. She pauses, then nods at his stomach, and he can almost see the wrinkle lines of concern etch themselves into the corners of her eyes. "What's wrong?" she asks.

He glances down. He's so used to grasping his leg he didn't notice the tension in his hand. He's holding tight to his stomach. The corners of her mouth come up: it's not a smile, but something like it. His stomach releases, just a little, and he lets go. "Nothing," he tells her.

He hates so much of this. He hates his pain and he hates her guilt, and he's not sure what's breaking but he knows something in his chest is releasing, a smooth fissure between what it is and what it could be – what it should be. He hates this, but he loves her too, and for now it has to be enough.

He turns to leave. "Goodnight," he says, looking over his shoulder, and somehow giving in isn't quite the apocalypse he was expecting.

This time it's a real smile. "Goodnight House," she says, and he feels a _clink_ as something slides into place.


End file.
